User Reviews

By far the strongest and most important Mythology until now. And probably one of the best Mythologies of the entire show. It's not as vague or slow moving as previous episodes, and thank the lords of Kobol that it wasn't filled with tons of cheesy lines including the word 'truth'.

Duane Barry was an extraordinary character and his abduction scenes featured some of the best scenes of the series. They were very well done and some of them borderline creepy. The hostage scenes were also superbly done, the hostages all did their part. and the scenes between Mulder and Duane were also superbly done.

Scully's character, although not that important in this episode had some really nifty scenes. She and the tracking chip, and the cliff-hanger with Duane attacking her at her home. Yeah, if you didn't care for the Mythology yet you would after this episode.

FIVE stars, easily. My second favorite episode yet.

Due to Gillian Anderson's real-life pregnancy, she needed to be written out of the show for a little while to deliver her baby. Duane Barry begins the storyline that was written to get around this situation. I think the Scully abduction storyline was very well done throughout the course of the series. It's funny that this real-life event brought about this fantastic storyline. Continuing with its tradition of great guest stars, Steve Railsback gives an incredible performance as the abductee, Duane Barry. This episode is low on action but high on drama as Mulder negotiates with Duane Barry in a hostage situation. My only hang-up with this episode is the about face of Agent Lucy Kazdin. At first she tells Mulder that what Duane Barry needs is a "friend, someone who appears to understand him and can appeal to his sense of reason." She also say, "So whatever crap you got to make up about space men or UFOs, just keep him on the phone." Then later, she abruptly changes her mind and tells Mulder not to feed into Duane's psychosis when Mulder says he believes him. I don't see those two strategies as compatible. Either you go along with Duane's "aliens" or you don't. It just doesn't make any sense. However, it's a minor issue, and the every other aspect of the episode is great. The ending scene in Scully's apartment is chilling and memorable.

Duane Barry the Limerick:

An ex FBI man Duane Barry

Gets taken by aliens scary.

"Oh no not again!"

"I must make this end!"

He takes hostages cuz he is weary.

Duane Barry has always been one of my favorite season 2 episodes. I remember when I first bought the season 2 DVD set and watched the episodes in sequence. Before then I had never seen this episode and I hadn't realized just how early in the show Scully's abduction had been.

The episode deals with an ex-FBI agent who has become an impulsive liar or something like that, who is a repeat abductee. He finally snaps and decides that in order to keep from being taken again, he needs to get someone else to take his place and thus, kidnaps his doctor and takes a travel agency hostage. This is the first episode of a two-parter and this takes place mostly in the travel agency, and plays out like your typical hostage crisis storyline with the task force talking to the killer and doing everything they can to get a shot on one end and the hostages and shooter on the other end. I'm always reminded of the movie with Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. I think its called The Negotiator. Anyway, Mulder is called in to help talk to Duane because of his "special" background and instead Mulder ends up buying into Duane's "delusion" which we will later find out was true. Duane is eventually shot and taken to a hospital where an implant is found and removed from his body. Scully takes the implant and scans it at the grocery store causing the register to flip out. Shaken, she goes home and immediately calls Mulder to relate the experience. As she is in the middle of leaving a message, Duane Barry shows up and kidnaps her and we are left with a "To Be Continued..." The episode is entertaining and is an important part of the mythology. There aren't exactly a lot of novel or singular moments that make it stand out other than the very unique character of Duane Barry, but nevertheless I do enjoy watching it every time. I will give it a 8 out of 10.

In the myth-arc episodes this one stands out. Steve Railsback does an excellent job of portraying a mentally frazzled ex-FBI agent who mysteriously suffered a brain injury inflicted with his own weapon after which his life spiraled downward. He was institutionalized. It is put forward, not overtly however, that he was taken by aliens, tested and implanted, and returned in the state that caused his downfall. He is fearful of future abductions and diagnosed as delusional and violent as a result. He escapes with his doctor and several hostages in which Mulder is called in to aid in the stand-off as a negotiator.

This is a slow moving and revealing story in the myth-arc. Barry reveals he is a virtual prisoner of both his fears as well as the government's knowledge in which he will never again see the light of day except for the fact he is tracked and may be abducted and returned at the alien's will. This is a life he can no longer stand and thus his escape with hostages. Mulder is the only agent who believes him and he very much wishes to avoid his assassination. Due to his volatile state, however, Mulder realizes he has to set him up hoping if he survives he can gain some inside information. Mulder, with Scully's help manages to pull it off, but Barry escapes after the one implant that is removed calls home setting off the alien's bedside reappearance. The calling home sequence is a kind of cool nod to the development of bar-codes. Bar-codes were developed as far back as the fifties and the connection to knowledge, perhaps, gleaned from Roswell being integrated into our everyday society is inspired.

This is a need to watch story that extends into another episode where Barry is instructed to abduct Scully so he can offer her as a kind of "peace offering" so the aliens will leave him alone. This one gets high marks for excellent production values (i.e. well done, technical and not cheesy). The one comic relief, for some viewers, will be the needless shot of Mulder in the first minute in a Speedo.

Mulder is empowered knowing he has a real insider who bridges both the aliens and the government's cover-up. He really wants to pick Duane for his knowledge, but things get way out of control with the subsequent kidnapping of Scully. So even though it moves pretty slow it escalates with some degree of urgency as well as importance in the building of the myth-arc that permeates the series. Thus a highly recommended episode.

The writing by Chris Carter makes this a compelling episode which turns out to be a two part story, wrapped up in the following show of the series, "Ascension". The quandary faced by agent Mulder is whether the protagonist Duane Barry (Steve Railsback) is an actual alien abductee or a habitual, compulsive liar. A strong case is made for both, with Scully doing the leg work to uncover his past tenure with the FBI. Mulder places the dilemma in context when he states that Barry skirts the fine thread of sanity.

Having read some of the Whitley Strieber stuff and stories of people who claim to have been abducted, I wasn't surprised by some of the elements introduced in this story, like the alien experiments and body implants. I believe the most common implant is marked by a small, crescent shaped scar behind the victim's ear, replaced in this story by the one on Barry's abdomen. It was pretty clever of Scully to take one of those objects removed from Barry's body and run it through a supermarket checkout scanner making it go berserk.

For someone who wasn't trained in hostage negotiation, I thought Mulder did a pretty good job getting the peripheral detainees out of there without incident. To do it though, he had to perform a balancing act regarding the instructions given him by Agent Kazdin (CCH Pounder), whether to identify with Barry's abduction story or disregard his psychosis to set up the rescue team. By this time, you knew Mulder was going to do whatever he wanted anyway.

With Agent Krycek still partnering with Mulder at this point, I had to chuckle over how much the guy was given short shrift by virtually everybody he came in contact with - Mulder, the Smoking Man who he was secretly working for, and the ultimate ignominy of filling a mocha grande order for Agent Kazdin. You didn't actually see him get the coffee, but you had to know his frustration at being a lackey for his superiors. Serves the creep right.

I've lately started to watch X-Files, and while the episodes are often exciting and fun, the numerous plot holes/oversights usually drag the experience down. I have no idea whether the writing continues to be this way throughout the series, but it has certainly hindered my enjoyment of the first two seasons thus far. So, I've taken it upon myself to catalogue such errors in IMDb reviews, beginning here with "Duane Barry." To wit:

1) How could the FBI Hostage Negotiation team not have already looked up the suspect's medical history? It takes Scully's private research to uncover his brain damage/etc.? Totally illogical, especially since his records would have been kept at the institution he had just escaped from.

2) This is a general X-Files complaint, applicable to this and many other episodes: How is the private information of our agents so easy to find? Barry just walks up to Scully's house and breaks in? Maybe in this case he's ex-FBI, so I can see him having the resources to look her up. But really, I've seen far too many episodes where random criminals somehow find out Mulder/Scully's home phone number, or address. I had to laugh during "Young at Heart," when the bad guy finds his way INTO SCULLY'S HOME, at the same time the doctor they're looking for shows up at her door. How did both these characters find out where she lives, and one even make it inside the house? Talk about fortuitous plot developments.

3) At the end, Barry shows up at Scully's house and kidnaps her. But how does he even know about her? Again, maybe ex-FBI means he looked up Mulder's history and went to kidnap his ex-partner, but really that's a bit of a stretch. During the episode, he neither interacts with nor sees her even once.

This episode is very interesting and it is start of a new era. This is the beginning of the Scully abduction story line, which increased and became a great success. Without the abduction, half the story line wouldn't have happened, all thanks to Duane Barry. Duane Barry is a very interesting character. Anyway, now I will say Good and Bad things about this episode,

The Good: Wow, that was very brave of Mulder to go in there. =O

Duane Barry talking in 3rd person. xD

Finding out her might me lieing in the end. Wow.

The Bad: The torture scenes. =[[

Conclusion: A good episode all over. 8/10

Probably he trusts scully now more than his insticts

He believed in Duane Barry. Because he was telling not fairy tales. How can duane know so much things?

He cant make up those stories. He was not kidnapped probably by aliens, some goverment or deep state did it but i was disappointed to see mulder gave up.

When mulder was in area, the power went off. Everyone saw it. Was it coincide? Why diid not mulder think of those, i dont understand.

And why scully was so prejudiced.

I think this is the 2. episode in series that is ending with "to be continued".

I like the episode. Aliens or government, someone kidnapped him (i dont give a chance that he was not kidnapped or he made up stories) and everyone believes what science says, what news and tv shows. What piece of papers show.

It was good episode that is why. Mulder was not like that before. I hope he understands.

Duane was in coma but he woke up. This is showing something is hidden.

But why goverment did not kill him or that hidden group? We will see :)

Fantastic episode with lots of twists and turns. It was great that mulder was the one to emphasise with Duane Berry and as an extension the viewers and and one of the hostages believed his story. I couldn't image what Duane must have gone through. I was extra concerned when he mentioned he's seen little girls up there being tortured and experimented on as well as the US government being in on it. Which could give mulder a clue where his sister is.

Scullys fascination with one of the tracking devices found in Duane's body is strange. Not sure why she couldn't accept that is was otherworldly as the ballistics expert mentioned. Yet she had to take the fragment home with her. I think she will pay the consequences in the coming episodes. Hopefully this will open her mind up even more to the reality's of ET phenomena.

Side note: I really enjoy how nobody respects Krycek. His fly on the wall appearances seem to be only to collect intel for the higher ups. His practical use to mulder is little and he's only good enough to make coffee for the Lead FBI woman.

Duane Barry is about Mulder being called in to act as a hostage negotiator, when a former FBI agent claiming abductions, takes four people hostage.

A solid and interesting episode that progresses the mytharc, but it's not the kind of episode that draws me to watching the show. Steve Railsback's quite good as Duane Barry. There's some basis to what he claims with the metal implants and being catalogued, but he's also delusional seeing lights and aliens and then nothing the next. He recovers pretty well after being shot, to head to Scully's. Where he's being lured by the metal implant I assume, orchestrated by the Smoking Man. It's like I said before when it comes to evidence though, they found these implants in him and tiny drill holes they couldn't medically explain and yet nothing... they just inform Mulder.

"They… drilled my teeth. They drill holes in my damn teeth!" – Duane Barry.

Episode 5, 'Duane Barry', original air date October 14th, 1994. Written and directed by Chris Carter. Mythology episode count, 8. 'Duane Barry' is cited as being Chris Carter's directorial debut, while that is true for The X-Files he actually directed an episode of the television series Rags to Riches in 1987. Perhaps he had hoped to omit that credit from his filmography, it certainly would have been a running start to his career as a director to begin with this episode. That said, one episode is hardly substantial so it's fair to say that he was new to the game in 1994. As we know, Gillian Anderson was set to give birth to her first child during the filming of season 2 and consequently the writers needed to construct a story arc that would allow her some time off, albeit a brief respite. Starting with episode 4 'Sleepless' and concluding with episode 8 'One Breath', the story arc that was simply born out of necessity and time constraints would become the unlikely genesis of a mythology thread that would weave itself through to the very end of the series. Carter's script puts in to motion the events that would lead to Scully's illness, sterilisation and ultimately the birth of her son. The X-Files team have openly admitted to a lack of planning regarding the series mythology. Unlike more recent television shows like Lost or Breaking Bad, The X-Files was not written with an overall story arc in mind and without any clear end in sight the writer's needed to continue to expand upon the fictional universe with each season renewal. It's likely then that Carter almost certainly did not foresee what effect the events of these early episodes would have, if any, on the future of the show.

'Duane Barry' is the first of a two part episode that technically concludes with 'Ascension' though the mythology is rounded off with 'One Breath' before returning to the standalone format. Carter's script is a high tension thriller that centres around a hostage negotiation. It's fairly static in regards to location so it's a credit to both the writing and direction that it feels anything but stagnant in its delivery. Duane Barry (Steve Railsback), an abductee that has been pushed to the edge and takes his doctor hostage is the star of the show. The major part of the episode revolves around Mulder attempting to negotiate with Barry in to letting his hostages go. Mulder is called in due to his experience with abductees, though he is the only one involved who actually believes Barry's claims. Duane Barry's insistence on speaking in the third person is an interesting touch which brings a sense of eeriness to his character. As the audience we're on the fence throughout most of the episode until it's made fairly clear, with the discovery of implants of foreign objects and tiny drill holes in his teeth that Barry's assertions are very likely true. The cliffhanger ending sees Barry appear at Scully's house to abduct her as she screams for Mulder's help. It's a great ending that first time viewers would unlikely see coming as it all seems to be wrapping itself up neatly until the final coda. The logic of the episodes conclusion however is problematic in that it seems like a rather large plot hole when you consider that Duane Barry neither interacts with or even hears about Scully during the hostage crisis. Yet he singles her out as his target and manages to find her address somehow. How he even knew of her existence or why he chose to kidnap her of all people remains a mystery. It's arguable that as an ex-F.B.I agent he may have been able to access Mulder's file but it's still questionable why he would take this route.

'Duane Barry' does a lot to further the idea that Aliens exist in this fictional universe and Mulder is positively captivated by Barry's story, he yearns to hear more while at the same time a small part of him is wary of being taken for a ride. He wants so desperately to believe that he is danger of being gullible, and he knows this as he questions Barry towards the end about whether he is making any of this up. Mulder doesn't want him to get shot but he knows it's possibly his only way out. It's also arguable that he feels a sense of obligation to his role as an F.B.I agent that he follow protocol, at least to some extent, and resolve the hostage crisis as there a lives at stake beyond his own. He resigns himself to the fact that no matter how willing he is to believe, the reality is that he is not in a position of power to peacefully bring an end to this situation. Scully is given possibly her most definitive piece of evidence regarding the existence of extra-terrestrials in the implant taken from Barry and she appears noticeably shocked and overwhelmed by the truth that may be contained within this alien object. Unfortunately she may never find out what that is as for the first time in the series we're left with a tantalising, to be continued